15. Ferdinand and Isabella had especial claims and advantages for this intrustment by the Pope above all other Catholic princes, because they had with noble efforts driven out the infidels and Mohammedans from the land of their ancestors, and because they sent at their own charge Columbus, the great discoverer, whom they named the chief admiral.
16. As the Pope did right in this assignment, so he has power to revoke it, to transfer the country to some other prince, and to forbid, on pain of excommunication, any rival prince to send missionaries.
17. The kings of Castile and Leon have thus come lawfully to jurisdiction over the Indies.
18. This obliges the native kings of the Indies to submit to the jurisdiction of the kings of Spain.
19. Those native kings, having freely and voluntarily received the Faith and baptism, are bound (as they were not before) to acknowledge this sovereignty of the kings of Spain.
20. The kings of Spain are bound by the law of God to choose and send fit missionaries to exhort, convert, and do everything for this cause.
21. They have the same power and jurisdiction over these infidels before their conversion as the Pope has, and share his obligations to convert them.
22. The means for establishing the Faith in the Indies should be the same as those by which Christ introduced his religion into the world,—mild, peaceable, and charitable; humility; good examples of a holy and regular way of living, especially over such docile and easy subjects; and presents bestowed to win them.
23. Attempts by force of arms are impious, like those of Mahometans, Romans, Turks, and Moors: they are tyrannical, and unworthy of Christians, calling out blasphemies; and they have already made the Indians believe that our God is the most unmerciful and cruel of all Gods.